One Night in the Captain's Cabin
by Brenda Shaffer-Shiring
Summary: A gentle domestic scenario, set in an alternate universe in which, among other changes, Voyager remained in the Delta Quadrant.


TITLE: One Night in the Captain's Cabin  
AUTHOR: Brenda Shaffer-Shiring  
RATING: G  
PART: 1/1  
CODES: AU romance  
DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns all, but I doubt they want this!  
SUMMARY: A gentle domestic scenario, set in a future in which Voyager remained in the Delta Quadrant.  
  
  
  
It's sometime after midnight, and I've just woken up. With a vague memory of hearing Katie fuss, I stagger across the bedroom, toward the alcove where her crib is. But I must have fallen back to sleep after I first heard her cry, because I see her father's gotten there before me. He's sitting in the rocking chair, holding her securely, but the rocker is still. Looking closer, I see that, in the process of getting the baby back to sleep, Chakotay has fallen asleep himself.  
  
With her chubby little arm crooked up on his broad chest and his big, dark head bent over her small, almost hairless one, they look so adorable that I think about taking a holograph of them. Another one, I should say. But Chakotay's already warned me that if I take too many pictures of them while he's not looking, he'll retaliate in kind someday -- and, knowing his sense of humor, he'll probably pick some scene less flattering to me than this is to him.  
  
There's nothing to stop me from standing here and enjoying the sight, though, and I do. She's a beautiful child, and he's the proudest, and happiest, father I've ever seen. Sometimes I'm awed at the happiness I've given him.  
  
Sometimes I'm stunned at the happiness he's given me.  
  
There was a time when it seemed impossible that we'd end up together, even after we both knew it was what we wanted. So many things stood in our way. There was old love, and old pain: for a long time I couldn't forget the anguish of being separated from my lover, and of course he could never forget what happened with *her*. Then there was duty, since we both knew all too well that a captain can, must, have no higher priority than command and crew, especially a captain in our situation. Finally, there was protocol. No matter what the manuals spout about there being no rules against fraternization, in the real world Starfleet strongly discourages any captain/subordinate relationship (and in any circumstances other than ours, I'd grant that they have their reasons), and a lot of our crew might still buy into that ethic.  
  
So we told ourselves, told each other, that we were friends, and tried to convince ourselves that was enough.  
  
But there came a night when I looked at him across the mess hall and realized that, if we let all those demons thwart us, both of us would spend the rest of the voyage -- and probably the rest of our lives -- alone. Twenty, thirty, fifty years from now I'd be standing at the window, stiff and brittle and empty, looking across the mess hall and seeing him there by the door, sere and gray and solitary. Everything we could ever have had would be lost, gone--  
  
Suddenly I couldn't look away from him.  
  
I don't know if he read my mind, or my expression, or if by some coincidence we simply came to the same realization at the same moment. I know that his eyes locked with mine, know that he crossed the room and took my hand. Ignoring the sudden hush in the room, and the disapproving look that (we noticed peripherally) we were getting from Tuvok, we left Neelix's party together.  
  
We kissed each other, there in the corridor. He had one strong arm wrapped around my back and one big hand on the back of my head, and I held on held on held on as tightly as I could, feeling the pulse of life beating through his body....  
  
Someone might have seen us, true. Just then, we didn't care. That moment, that embrace, were ours, and I think they were the first things we'd claimed for ourselves in a long time.  
  
We walked through the corridors hand-in-hand, collecting more than a few stares but noting the lack of hostility in any of them. We talked at great length, and more honestly than we'd ever managed in all the time we'd served together. And we knew all the while that the most important issue had been resolved in that first moment in the corridor: we wouldn't remain apart.  
  
We decided to marry. Why not? We knew that we loved each other, and neither of us doubted for one moment that we'd stay together. Besides, a crew in our situation expects the captain to be a symbol of stability, and what's more stable than a strong, steady, committed relationship?  
  
The issue of children was a tougher one. The work I have to do -- the work no one else on this ship *can* do -- might put an unborn child at risk. Even if I could safely carry that child and bear it, would we have the time to give it the attention it would need? It's not as if Chakotay's work could spare him, either.  
  
I was about to say "We can't," and I could see in his eyes that he was too. But my heart was grieving, and his face, his whole body, was crumpled like mourning, and oh God, I could almost see that little child, the one I'd never bear, the one he'd never hold....  
  
I blurted out, "I want children."  
  
His expression was one of pure gratitude.  
  
Well, things proceeded from there, and for the most part they've worked out better than we'd guessed. We married ourselves, in a ceremony that combined Starfleet protocol with his ancient traditions, and the crew accepted our marriage easily enough. We had no trouble conceiving our daughter, and I carried her without incident. Even tending to her has been less of a problem than we anticipated. We stagger our shifts when we can, and with the help of some volunteers we've managed to set up a passable day-care center that gets used by every family with young children on Voyager. Child care has actually become a coveted duty on this ship.  
  
Speaking of duty, I should wake Chakotay up and get him to bed so he can get some real rest before duty tomorrow. Adorable as he and Katie look together in the rocking chair, if he spends the rest of the night there he's going to wake up awfully stiff -- and not in the best possible sense of the term. Carefully, trying not to startle him, I lay a hand on his shoulder. "Chakotay."  
  
He never looses his grip on our daughter, holding her close as he shakes his head, blinking like a baby targ opening its eyes for the first time. "Mmm?"  
  
"Come to bed, sweetheart." Gently, I ease Katie from his arms so I can take her back to her crib. For once, the captain of Voyager takes orders instead of giving them, staggering back to our own bed as I watch.  
  
As I lay Katie down in her crib, I remember how we both felt after that shuttle accident, the one where we lost Tom and Captain Janeway. I thought my chances for love were done, and Chakotay thought his chances for happiness were over.   
  
I'm glad we were wrong.  
  
END 


End file.
